Sawbones 248: Dr. Price's Bad Ideas Published October 13Th, 2018 Listen Here on Themcelroy.Family

Sawbones 248: Dr. Price's Bad Ideas Published October 13th, 2018 Listen here on themcelroy.family Intro (Clint McElroy): Sawbones is a show about medical history, and nothing the hosts say should be taken as medical advice or opinion. It's for fun. Can't you just have fun for an hour and not try to diagnose your mystery boil? We think you've earned it. Just sit back, relax, and enjoy a moment of distraction from that weird growth. You're worth it. [theme music plays] Justin: Hello and welcome to Sawbones, a marital tour of misguided medicine! I'm your cohost, Justin McElroy! Sydnee: And I'm Sydnee McElroy. Justin: Happy Book Launch Week to you, Sydster. Sydnee: Oh, likewise, Justin. This is a very exciting week. Justin: It is an exciting week! Finally, after a year and a half of work, the book that you and I spent so much time writing, and your sister Teylor, uh… drew pictures for it—that's not the preferred term, I think— Sydnee: No. Let's try "illustrated." Justin: [snooty voice] Illustrated? Sydnee: Mm-hmm. Justin: Illustrated. Sydnee: Mm-hmm. Justin: Uh, it is available now! Uh, if you could find it. [laughs] Sydnee: Yeah, so thank you, wonderful, amazing, supportive listeners for buying our book in such numbers that for a while it was hard to get. Justin: It's still— Sydnee: Well, it's still hard to get, but more are coming. Justin: More are coming. Sydnee: More are being delivered. More are being printed. Justin: Yes, so thank you so much for your support. If you wanna get the book, if you haven't gotten it yet, bit.ly/thesawbonesbook. You'll find a bunch of different links. Even if a place says they're out of stock, go ahead and, like, put in your order, then as soon as they're there— Sydnee: 'Cause they are literally getting sho—getting stock, like, today, tomorrow, in the next several days, and then even more are being printed beyond that, so— Justin: But thank you so much. Sydnee: —stock is coming. Justin: And a lot of Barnes and Noble stores, physical stores apparently, do have these in stock. And, uh, if you're in the Huntington area, we got a signing on Saturday at 2 PM. You can definitely pick one up there, because you have to buy one there for that event, but you can do that 2 PM on Saturday at the Barnes—no, sorry! Sydnee: And the Books-A-Million. Justin: At the Books-A-Million in Huntington, West Virginia. Technically Barbersville, but whatevs. Sydnee: That's right. Justin: And then we're doing another one of those in Charleston on the 27th, and then New York on the 17th. Sydnee: We'll be at the Barnes and Noble. Justin: At the Barnes and Noble in Tribeca. Sydnee: Yes. Justin: So come out, see us. Thank you for your support. Thank you, thank you, thank you. But we are celebrating the launch of our book by doing what we do best: Sawbones: Back to Basics. Sydnee: That's right, Justin. I can't take credit for finding this excellent topic. I usually am pretty good about sharing that credit. Uh— Justin: Mm-hmm. [quietly] Usually. Sydnee: —Terry tweeted this fella's name at me to look into, and I checked my email and both Malachi and Julie have recommended this as well, so thank you all for this topic. I'm gonna tell you about a doctor named Weston Price. Justin: Weston Price is a very doctorly name, I do have to say. Sydnee: It is. Now, he is—actually, I should be clear. When I say "doctor," I mean doctor of dentistry. He is a dentist. Or was a dentist. Justin: Ahh, yeah. I could tell from the, uh—the sneer in your voice— Sydnee: No— Justin: —that he wasn't a doctor like you. Sydnee: Ju— Justin: You can't stand dentists. Sydnee: Ju—I have no— Justin: Sydnee hates dentists. Sydnee: —I have no beef with dentists. Justin: Then why—when was the last time you went to a dentist? Sydnee: That has nothing to do with my—like, me disliking dentists. Justin: Raise your hand if it's over a decade. She's raising her hand, folks! Sydnee: I am not. Justin: It's up in the air. Sydnee: I—I am— Justin: She's crying. So ashamed. Sydnee: More so than most people— Justin: 'Cause she hates dentists! Sydnee: —I am appreciative of dentists. Justin: In theory. Sydnee: Because in medical school, they don't teach you a lot about teeth. I am beginning to wonder if that's on purpose, because we don't wanna steal anything from the dentists? Justin: I assume that they do teach you how should feel about dentists, Syd. [singing] You have to be taught to hate and fear— Sydnee: No— Justin: —[singing] you have to be taught from year to year, you have to be carefully taught! And that's how Sydnee, uh, learned to despise dentistry. Sydnee: Okay. Justin: And its practitioners. Sydnee: None of this is true. I love dentists. You know there are— Justin: Not enough to go to one! Sydnee: —there are dentists and dental hygienists—they are listening and they think you're serious. I love dentists. I am so appreciative of what you do, and dental health is incredibly important, and I am not gonna knock on Dr. Price because he was a dentist. I'm knockin' on him because of all the stuff that he did. Justin: Mm-hmm. But you'll—you're—you're enjoying it because he was a dentist. Sydnee: No. The divide between medicine and dentistry is called the historic rebuff, and that's an episode that we'll do eventually, 'cause that's an amazing name. But I have no rebuff. I will not rebuff dentists. They are wonderful. But not so much Dr. Price, who lived from 1870 to 1948. He was a Canadian dentist, practiced a lot in Cleveland, Ohio, and if you—if you believe his followers today, because this stuff persists today, as we'll get into, he is the Isaac Newton of nutrition. [pauses] That's what they call him. Justin: That's a good name. Sydnee: Isaac Newton of nutrition. Justin: I'd love to be Isaac Newton of nutrition, if the option was still available. I would love to sign up for that. Sydnee: There are many in the dental field—and I am not in the dental field, but I will also be one of the people who now think of him as the patron saint of qua— crack—quack, excuse me—[holding back laughter] patron saint of quack dentistry. Because he was wrong… about some stuff. So he may have started out as just a regular dentist, just doin' the dentist thing. Um, but he didn't end up that way. He was—there was a debate at the time, when he was practicing dentistry, about root canal therapy. Justin: Okay. Sydnee: Uh, before I get into that debate, do you—do you wanna explain what a root canal is? Justin: Yeah. I've had one. It's sort of—the way—okay. Sydnee: I had to look this up, 'cause again—I feel like maybe even doctors know less than the average person about dentistry! Justin: They—they di—they… di—dig a hole— Sydnee: Yeah. Justin: —into your tooth, down the middle, and then they take out the tooth's guts. Sydnee: Yeah, more or less. And then you put stuff back in. Justin: Tooth stuff. Sydnee: Like, inner substance— Justin: Cotton, whatever. Sydnee: No, it's like a rubbery—it's called [hesitantly] gutta-percha. Justin: Gutta-percha? Sydnee: Yeah. Justin: Okay. Sydnee: Which is like a tree. It's like a—it's like a resin, a rubbery substance from a tree. Justin: Okay. Sydnee: And they stick it down in there. So yeah, they dig out the infected or inflamed pulp and put the—the inert substance in there instead, and you do that because, again, a tooth is either infected for some reason or it's been, like, damaged in some sort of trauma and so it's all inflamed inside. Something like that, and it's causing you a lot of pain, right? Or, like, in the case of an infection, can make you really sick. So, that's a root canal, and for a long time, if your tooth was jacked up… you know, medically speaking… Justin: Mm-hmm. Sydnee: … [holding back laughter] they would just yank it out, right? Justin: Right. Sydnee: Just go and, like—barber surgeons did that. You know, lots of people we've talked about in old-timey medicine shows—they would, like, put somebody up onstage and yank a bunch of teeth out as fast as possible so people could watch, 'cause… there wasn't TV yet. Justin: 'Cause they're nasty. [laughs quietly] Sydnee: But there were other, smarter dentists who said, "You know what? I don't think we should be pulling all these teeth out, because if you lose all your teeth, it's hard to eat." And that's a major problem, actually. See, I do know some things about teeth. That is a major problem— Justin: [laughs] Sydnee: —as we get older. If you've lost your teeth and you, you know, don't have false teeth or dentures or anything, eating and nutrition can become a big issue in our elderly population, and so it's really important to keep your teeth healthy, and to keep your teeth, period.

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